The Science and Philosophy of the Organism

Now all we have said holds with regard to entelechy also. The concept of entelechy as an effective extra-spatial intensively manifold constituent of nature, based upon the category of individuality, explains, say, the restitution of the Ascidian Clavellina in general. The restitution, however, of the particular specimen before us is referred " causally " or historically, not by the mere act of my cutting the animal into two parts, and not even by my creating a special restitutive stimulus — unknown in detail — by the operation. The historical reference lies in the fact that my cutting the animal and thus creating a restitutive stimulus affects a given organism that actually is the point of manifestation of

a natural factor, viz. of a certain form of entelechy, just as the child in our instance pushed not only " a stone," but a stone endowed with a specific potential energy. By these considerations, it seems to me, not only the logical and ontological similarities between entelechy and the other natural agents have been put into the clearest evidence, but also the general relations between laws of " ideal nature " or " Platonic ideas " and factors in natural Givenness — as far as it is conceived and not merely immediate Givenness — have acquired a certain sort of final elucidation. A deeper analysis, of course, would belong to a theory of knowledge.

Now, as to entelechy just as with respect to space there is still a third kind of " explaining." In this sense the typical features of a certain specific type of entelechian manifestation, say of a dog or a bee, may be said to be " explained " by entelechy as a whole. This new sort of explaining is nearly related to explaining in the real rational sense, though it is not identical with it. We approach the realm of this sort of explaining if we now turn to devote a few words to the problem of entelechian systematics, shortly mentioned already on another occasion.

It certainly is a problem whether or not the category of individuality would allow us to predict how many types of manifestations of entelechy — culminating in man — might be possible, and for what reasons these manifestations are what they actually are in fact, just as the category of space * allows 1 It would be useless for our purposes to make a sharp distinction between the categories of "imagination" and the categories of ontology. us to predict the number of regular bodies and their characteristics. Here we meet the problem of systematics once more.

No attempt has been made, so far, to answer the first of these questions, except a few rather fanciful constructions by the school of Schelling. In fact, it is difficult to see what the ground of division for a system of entelechian manifestations could be. It probably could only be gained from introspective psychology,1 from an analysis of different types of volition ; but that would not go beyond mere analogy at present. As to the second question, the problem " why " these very singularities are connected in one unity, it is here that the third special kind of " explaining " above mentioned comes into play. The old French morphologists, Cuvier for instance, saw this problem ; only E. Kadi 2 has seen it in our own day. It is the problem of necessary but non-causal connexion, which also plays its role in geometry, and in everything connected with geometry. " Explaining " would occur here on the basis of the " Satz voiu Grunde des Seins " in Schopenhauer's terminology. But there exists not even an attempt at a solution of this fundamental problem.

A few aprioristic special statements with regard to different forms of entelechian manifestation, though not witli regard to systematics, are indeed possible. It might, 1 To a certain extent Bergson tries to derive the different types of organic beings — plants, echinoderms and molluscs, arthropods, vertebrates — from the character of his supra-conscious e'/art vital. This common source would also explain the harmonies among those ty[>es, especially that between plants and animals in general.

* See in particular his Geschichte der biologischen Theories, vol. i., Leipzig, 1905 ; vol. ii. in preparation. for instance, be predicted from the very nature of an organism, that it would restore itself, after disturbances of its organisation, either by regeneration or by re-differentia tion, that is to say on the basis of either an harmonious- or a complex -equipotential system. But this aprioristic distinction is not gained from an analysis of entelechy as such, but from an analysis of the nature of the perfect organism.

We know that autonomous vital phenomena are founded upon natural factors and laws which we are able to conceive by the aid of a special category of relation, individuality. We know also in what relations these factors stand with regard to inorganic factors and laws and how they act with regard to space — they are nonspatial but manifest themselves in space. But one point of great importance has only been incidentally mentioned — the relation of entelechy to time.

Somewhat mysteriously I said in a former chapter1 " being and becoming are united in entelechy," " time enters into the timeless," namely, into ideas in the Platonic sense. That is to say, entelechy, though an elemental ontological entity, cannot manifest itself completely in any case without taking a definite amount of time ; and this, at the first glance at least, seems to be contradictory to the concept of a Platonic idea, which expresses the timeless, the non-historical par excellence.

once more. Morphogenesis is a succession of typical stages ; when one stage is perfect the next stage begins. The validity of these statements is not affected by the fact that, as the experiments of Klebs have shown, in so-called " open " forms, such as plants, the different stages may be lengthened or shortened or even completely suppressed under certain external conditions. In any case an embryo of a plant would not form a flower until it had formed its first leaves, the so-called cotyledons. Now we have said on a former occasion that the fact of there being consecutive stages in all morphogenesis may well be understood on the assumption that entelechy by its having performed stage A, i.e. by the spatial existence of A, is summoned to perform the next stage B. In this way morphogenesis would consist in a permanent inter action between entelechy and matter. But even then, the activity of entelechy always wants time in order to manifest itself completely. This is true even if the single steps in the process of an entelechian manifestation are regarded as strictly instantaneous, i.e. requiring the time zero.

As to acting, it is enough to remark that a conscious aim, say the creation of a work of art, is invariably reached by stages, one completed stage provoking the completion of the next stage. The psychoid therefore cannot manifest itself except in time. And what about introspective self-experience ? Is not the most immediate fact presented to the conscious Ego the fact of its own duration ? Bergson, in fact, has made the concept of la duree, — not le temps — the centre of all episternology and biology.

make the " Temporal " in any form a constituent of what we have called " ideal nature " or not. Ideal nature only " is " in the sense of an eternal, i.e. timeless, validity ; it is the non-historical. The Temporal — so it seems — cannot have a place in this ideal world. Time is said to be properly a subjective phenomenon in the strictest sense ; time seems to be, if you will allow me to say so, still " more " unreal than space is. But, on the other hand, there is nothing more " real " to immediate self-experience than duration ; memory, the prerequisite of all experience, nay, of all knowing, ordinary and scientific, demands dura tion. Without the duration of my Ego, I might perhaps be conscious of single " Givennesses " in space, but they would be lacking in connexion ; there would not be one Givenness, there would be a permanent forgetting : no change, no movement, no past and future — only the present. And there would also be no morphogenesis and no acting : there would only be stages, but, since stage A would be forgotten when stage B arrived, there would be no connexion between the stages.

But my Ego does endure, and I do conceive change and movement and morphogenesis and action — my own and other people's. What then is to be preferred : my postulating an absolutely timeless ideal world and looking upon all realisation in time as a merely subjective thing — as a sort of imperfection of my conceiving that ideal world — or my immediate knowledge of duration, my knowledge of time as the most " real " of all realities ? There is no doubt that memory and duration are almost identical. And it is equally true that what, strictly

speaking, is called time — in particular, scientific time — is nothing but a certain constituent of enlarged Givenness, conceptually invented and " measured " on the analogy of space, and by no means identical with immediately given duration. In this respect Bergson's analysis is fundamental. I may add to it a certain remark of Lotze's that time, in the objectified or scientific sense, saves us from assuming that instantaneous Givenness comes from and passes into nothing.

Would then duration be something absolute in the strict sense, and would entelechy, at least my entelechy, since it implies duration, be something absolute also ? Then duration would really be a constituent of " ideal nature." On a later occasion we shall see that memory is indeed one of the few paths that tend to lead us towards something like absoluteness — though in another form than we are now speaking of. At present let us conclude these fragmental considerations by merely saying that to introduce duration into ideal nature would not be to introduce scientific time — time as defined by Kant — in the same sense as duration. The " Temporal " implied by entelechy would be objectified duration; and this is " timeless " in the scientific meaning of the word.

But let us regard the problem of " entelechy and time " from still another point of view. It certainly is one of the most universally known facts in biology that the adult organism is formed out of the egg by a consecutive series of processes, by a consecutive line of stages. And because this fact is known so universally and is observed almost every day, people — even scientific people — hardly realise sufficiently how very strange this fact is. Why is not the adult formed in the egg by an instantaneous act of entelechy ? You cannot reply to this question : * Because, of course, entelechy can only do one strictly single act at a given moment " ; for in the differentiation of an harmoniousequipotential system entelechy does produce, though not the complete, yet a certain composite totality instantaneously,1 and we all know that we ourselves are able to produce certain specific individual totalities of a composite character in strictly one element of time — e.g., when we strike a chord on the pianoforte. We may even say that on account of this being so, the concept of eutelechy was introduced. But again : why are there consecutive stages in ontogeny ? Why does time enter into each manifestation on the part of entelechy ?

We can only confess that we do not know. Theoretically, it would appear more reasonable if there were no such thing as " ontogeny." But, on the other hand, we all know that a painter, though he conceives or rather imagines the picture strictly as a whole instantaneously, and though he is able to produce certain composite totalities also instantaneously, is yet far from creating the complete whole in one moment. And this may serve us as an analogy ; it may teach us something more about the dependence of entelechian acts — not of entelechy itself — on non-entelechian factors ; for it is because he is dependent on his organisation and on many other things that a painter cannot paint a whole picture instantaneously. Indeed, only on the basis of some such dependence are we able to understand the existence of

1 That totality which is produced on the basis of the explicit prospective potency of a certain organ. See vol. i. page 83. ontogeny as a consecutive series of stages. The problem of " entelechy and time " may therefore be said to be partly solved by noticing the dependence of entelechian manifesta tions on inorganic means. But, I confess, this is only a partial solution. We now have tried to solve as far as we could the problem of " individuality " and the natural factors established by its aid, or, to speak in the usual terminology, the problem of teleology. Teleology is by no means " causality seen from behind," as many of our dogmatic philosophers maintain. Teleology or individuality is as elemental as causality.

The category of individuality entitles us to introduce into " ideal nature " a special kind of elemental constituents, and into given nature a special kind of elemental factors, which are unspatial but imply duration. Entelechy and the psychoid are types of them. We are entitled to introduce them since the ontological category of individuality is possessed by consciousness ; for this reason life is really explained by entelechy. Immediate psychological self -analysis shows us this category at work. With regard to objectified nature in direct proofs are required. Some such proofs have been found ; they relate to typical and specific combinations in organic nature, which are typical and specific with regard to space, or time, or both.

Entelechy in a certain sense implies causality and substance ; it may counteract true or inorganic or material causality, but it acts. Its chief performance is the augmenta tion of the degree of diversity of distribution among given elements ; this action may also be formulated with regard to mechanics. Entelechy iiscs matter and material causality for its " purposes." A material system in space left to itself will behave differently from what it would do if controlled by entelechy. In other words, spatial conditions form only a part of the sum of all conditions on which organic becoming depends. It is for this reason that all vital becoming strikes us as something that is new and primordial, though in fact the part played by entelechy does not imply creation but implies regulatory admission of pre-established possibilities only. This final statement implies that entelechy is alien not only to matter but also to its own material purposes. This, in fact, is a point of great importance : the concept of a " self-purpose " is contradictory in itself, even formally ; a " purpose," as we know from a former discussion, is always a certain state of the surroundings that " ought to be " with regard to a subject external to it.

Therefore, at the end of all, the often mentioned difference between organisms and things made by art, with regard to the relation between the " material " and its " user," dis appears : material and user are two entities not only with regard to objects of art and handicraft, but also with regard to organisms. For entelechy when at work in the organism —leading its morphogenesis or governing its motor organsis also not " in " the material organism but only manifests itself in this material. The only difference then that

remains between organisms and things made by art is the following: in products of art matter is formed through an entelechian manifestation pre-existing already, in morpho genesis and in the process of acting itself matter is affected immediately by entelechy. But in both cases non-spatial individualising entelechy is at work in the last resort, and entelechy is ^eternal to its "material." We now are at the end of our theory of the individual living organism, both scientific and philosophical

In the first place, let me remind you again on this occasion of the path that we have followed during our long analysis and synthesis. It seems to me that the chief and most characteristic feature of our method — I might even say the feature which alone enabled us to pursue our theoretical construction so far as we have done — is the specific character of the concepts from which we started. These concepts were not " collective " concepts, as used in ordinary biology, not concepts such as " the cell," " the nucleus," " the gastrula," " secretion," " nervous conduction " ; these only had their place in our introductory remarks. But the concepts we really worked with were of a very different character : " the prospective potency," " the equipotential system," " regulation," " the historical basis of reacting," " the individualised stimulus " are a few instances of the concepts that we employed. All of them are categorical concepts, concepts built up by a specific arrangement of pure categories ; and to them we owe the possibility of reaching finally the realm of the pure categories themselves.

And now let us briefly summarise in a special form all we have learnt about the organic living individual. Let us close our discussion with an analytical definition of the individual living organism. As an object of science, or, in other terms, as a con stituent of ideal nature, or from the point of view of enlarged phenomenalism, the living individual organism is a typical constellation of different elements which are each chemically and physically characterised ; its typical con stellation is preserved in spite of so-called metabolism, i.e. a permanent change of the material it consists of. The organism exists in innumerable exemplars ; it exhibits the phenomenon of development and possesses as its most im portant properties the faculties of regulation, reproduction, and active movement. The character of all the properties or faculties the living individual organism is endowed with is such that the organism cannot be conceived as a constellation of inorganic parts which is inorganic qua con stellation. There is something in the organism's behaviour — in the widest sense of the word — which is opposed to an inorganic resolution of the same and which shows that the living organism is more than a sum or an aggregate of its parts, that it is insufficient to call the organism " a typi cally combined body " without further explanation. This something we call entelechy. Entelechy — being not an extensive but an intensive manifoldness — is neither a kind of energy nor dependent on any chemical material ; more than that, it is neither causality nor substance in the true sense of these words. But entelechy is a factor

of nature, though it only relates to nature in space and is not itself anywhere in space. Entelechy's role in spatial nature may be formulated both mechanically and energeti cally. Introspective analysis shows that human reason possesses a special kind of category — individuality — by the aid of which it is able to understand to its own satisfaction what entelechy is ; the category of individuality thus com pleting the concept of ideal nature in a positive way.

This is a detailed analytical definition of the individual living organism. INDIVIDUALITY or teleology as a real ontological category of relation being established, the problem presents itself for discussion, whether its range of application with regard to Givenness in space or " nature " may not be wider than the mere biology of the individual organism. To restrict the application of individuality in a dogmatic manner to this limited field would be equivalent to saying that natural agents of the entelechiau class can only manifest themselves with respect to certain chemical compounds, of the albumen group in particular, and this, of course, would seem to be very strange and inconceivable.

In order to find out to which domains of nature individuality as a category may relate, at least hypothetically, we shall do best, I believe, to review once more the reasons which actually led us to set up the entelechian natural factors where we did. We began with certain classes of natural processes which were of the type of specific combinations of qualitative and quantitative cheinico-physical singularities in space and iu time and which were repeated in an indefinite number of exemplars. These classes were first pronounced " teleological " in the descriptive sense of the word. The question then arose, secondly, whether the combination of these states and processes was such as to allow us to regard it as the outcome of another primarily given physico-chemical com bination of a fixed character — as we understand the com bination of processes in an artificial machine from the combination of its parts — or whether the specific combina tion of our objects was guaranteed in itself, i.e. immanent. In short : " Is the teleology of our classes of the ' statical ' or of the ' dynamical ' type ? " With regard to morpho genesis, inheritance, and acting, the dynamical kind of teleology was found. Thirdly and finally, a special category, " individuality," was discovered, upon which our whole discussion had rested, unconsciously at the beginning, consciously at the end.

It is worth while to lay stress upon the fact that the cate gory of individuality would have also come on the scene if the " machine-theory " of life had proved to be right, say for the case of morphogenesis. Even in that case we should have been forced to ask for an intrinsic reason of " individual constructing," if not for this actual machine A —the egg — yet for the other hypothetic machine B which is supposed here to have been the basis of its originating. And if this machine B again had proved to be the effect of another machine C, we should have asked for its reason of constructing, and so on ad injinitum, Thus even on the machine theory of

morphogenesis the search for a really immanent-teleological or entelechian factor would have become a scientific task — an unending task perhaps. For, whenever we find typical constellations of the statical-teleological class, we are forced to conclude that there must liave been in some former time some autonomous intrinsic activity. The category of in dividuality forces us to conclude in this manner. This consideration, of course, is superseded, as soon as we have proved the entelechian factor to be immediately at work in every single originating organic individual ; but it will not be without importance for our future discussions to have alluded to it here.

A further distinction will also prove to be valuable for what is to follow. We have called the entelechian factor of morphogenesis typical with regard to order, whilst the psychoid, except when it resulted in products of art, was typical with regard to sequence exclusively. Morphogenetic entelechy always manifests itself in visible constellative products — the organisms. The psychoid may manifest itself in such constellations, as in objects of art and handicraft, but does not do so in everyday acting. But that does not prove anything against the character of the typical specific combination being realised in everyday action. The single phases of a conversation are unities in spite of their not being condensed, so to speak, in visibility.